


the fallacy in lists, marshmallows and immobilising detectives

by 99royalty



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Brooklyn Nine-Nine Holiday Gift Exchange 2015, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 01:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5563435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/99royalty/pseuds/99royalty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two weeks into their partnership and the title of today’s list ongoing only in Amy's head is “Reasons immobilising Detective Peralta wouldn't be as good as it sounds”.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the fallacy in lists, marshmallows and immobilising detectives

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Brooklyn Nine-Nine holiday gift exchange for jamy-peraltiago on tumblr! It's possibly not as happy as you wanted but I hope you like it.

Amy is very good at lists. She’s always been good at lists, and she’s always made lists. Even when she was very little, when she first learnt how to write, she’d make lists. Lists to Santa, lists for helping her mom shop, lists for putting her favourite Disney movies in order, lists for names for her bears, lists for school supplies, lists in which to put homework in order by…

The list of lists goes on.

The title of today’s list ongoing only in her head is “Reasons immobilising Detective Peralta wouldn’t be as good as it sounds”.

She’s known Peralta for only two weeks, and admittedly doesn’t know that much about him yet. But all that she does know is enough to make her want to break both of his legs. He’s disrespectful, his ego is way too big, he gets muffin crumbs everywhere, he won’t take anything seriously, his handwriting on police reports is practically illegible, and he will not stop jibing her. Jake – with his charisma, inability to do anything wrong by the captain (admittedly a trait shared by absolutely everyone considering McGinley is not a captain that seems to care about doing wrong), and natural talent to find every nerve she has and pull at it – annoys the hell out of Amy.

Not that she takes his teasing laying down; she’s been sure to point out to him every single thing that’s annoying about Jacob Peralta.

Hence the list.

_(1. He could probably sue her.)_

“How did I get paired with you?”

“You got incredibly lucky. I am literally NYPD’s finest of NYPD’s finest,” says Peralta, looking up from his phone, snapping it closed. He’s been taking pictures of himself and Amy (much to her chagrin) for almost the entire car journey.

“Not even close.” Amy sighs. They’re on the way to a probable drug dealer’s apartment, having gotten some key evidence against him this morning.

“Ah, jealousy,” he replies. “I’m pretty sure you know how good I am at this by now. You’ve seen me get so many collars over the last few weeks.”

“I’ve solved more cases than you since I got here. Definitely not the finest.”

“Okay, not if you’re counting the Trenton robbery, since that was totally my collar.”

“I got almost all the evidence we needed for that case!”

“I arrested him, and got the confession!”

“Ugh, you’re unbelievable.” Amy frowns, and tries to go back to her tried way of dealing with Peralta; ignoring him. So far, she’s learnt it doesn’t really work.

“Cheese,” Peralta says, and takes yet another picture of her as she turns to glare at him. He only grins back, then glances back down at his cell phone again. “Oh, you blinked. It looks like you’re asleep at the wheel actually. Be pretty hilarious if I showed this to the Sarge right now.”  
  
“ _Peralta_.”

“Okay, okay, I won’t send it anywhere, I’ll just keep it here in my phone. But I do need a picture of you!” he insists. She raises a brow. “So I can put it next to your name in my contacts.”

“You’ve taken a _dozen_ pictures.”

“Yeah, you photograph badly though,” he says.

His tone is light, and she’s not even really offended (she does indeed photograph badly). She hits him anyway.

_(2. It would definitely put her dreams of becoming captain at risk.)_

There’s only a few moments of silence before Peralta is talking again. “Hey, did you bring anything to eat? I’m so hungry. I knew I should have said yes to Charles when he offered me omelette this morning. I only said no because he mentioned some weird French ingredients, and didn’t want to take the risk of snails.”

“No, I didn’t,” Amy says, though she’s beginning to wish she had brought something. She’s kind of hungry herself. “Unless he said ‘escargot’ you probably shouldn’t have worried… and you cannot judge Boyle after I saw you put orange soda in a bowl of cereal yesterday,” says Amy.

“Mm, fruit loops. It was delicious. Has been since I was a kid.”

Amy just makes a noise of disgust, pulling a face.

“Ah, well. No worries, Detective, I have a bag of marshmallows in my pocket.” As though concerned she won’t believe he’s being serious, he digs into his pocket and brings out a large packet of golf ball sized marshmallows. Amy’s not even sure how it fit in his pocket, though it explains how bulgy it looked earlier. “I am so helpful, huh?”

“How is that helpful?”

“Well, it’s helpful to me. This is a long drive and I get snacky,” he says, taking a large bite out of one of the marshmallows.

“Long? It’s a twenty minute drive! And we need to be professional. You’re gonna mess up the car, just—”

“Okay, okay, relax.” Peralta sighs, as though this is costing him to say. He holds out one of the marshmallows to her. “Here, I’ll let you have one.”

“I don’t want one.” She bats it away, hard, and it goes flying somewhere under Peralta’s feet. “I swear you’re the most incompetent cop on the planet.”

Rather than be put out she rejected his marshmallow and sent it flying onto the floor, he just chuckles. “Why are you being so crazy right now?”

“I’m not— Ugh.” Maybe she is a bit more on edge than normal. “I just want this stupid case to go well. I want to catch this guy today, okay?”

Peralta’s expression changes to one of clarity. “Ah, I see. You’re trying to impress McGinley.”

Amy can’t hide her surprise “What? How– No, I’m not!”

“If we catch this guy today, that’ll be – what? Your fifth solved case since starting in the Nine-Nine?” he asks.

“Sixth,” Amy chimes in quickly, because that Trenton collar was definitely hers.

He goes on as if she hadn’t spoken. “It’s a nice, round landmark, and proves you’re quick to solve cases, since it’s looking like this one will be closed surprisingly quickly.”

“I’m… just being a good detective.”

“Hm, nah. You care more about following rules and making a good impression to the Captain and the Serge than just that, or anything else. You basically called them both gods yesterday.”

“What? No, no, I didn’t!” She’s tripping over her words, getting defensive. She did sort of compare them to Greek Gods yesterday, it was a bit embarrassing and not entirely what she was going for. She doesn’t even believe what she said – not in the Captain’s case, at least. Honestly, the only reason he has any of her respect right now is because he somehow managed to actually _make_ Captain. “You don’t know me!”

“I’m right though,” he says. “It doesn’t matter either way. You’re wasting your time.” He shrugs, taking another large bite of one of his marshmallows. At least he swallows before going on, “McGinley is awesome, okay; about a month ago he let me, Charles and Rosa have a pancake eating contest at our desks.” Peralta grins. Amy is not impressed. “But he’s also too cool to give a crap if this goes well or not. At most he’ll be mildly surprised if we don’t catch this guy. He’s not the kind of Captain that… you know, cares or whatever. We barely see him most days.”

“I’m not just bothered about what the Captain says. I’m doing my job and I’m doing it right, something I guess you wouldn’t understand.”

“You’re wounding me, Santiago. And after I’m so nice to you.” Then he takes out another marshmallow and puts it on her lap. He’s grinning childishly at her, obviously keen for some reaction.

“I really don’t want one,” says Amy, refusing to move it this time, eyes on the road.

“I know.” He’s grinning, leaning back as he watches her out of the corner of his eye, and the stupid marshmallow stays like that, on her lap, until she finally parks the car outside the address of the perp they’re after.

They get out the car, Peralta quickly stuffing the packet of marshmallows back in his pocket. Amy takes that lone stupid marshmallow on her lap with her, and hesitates only a little before eating the damn thing before they get to the perp’s front door.

She is pretty hungry, okay. She doesn’t look to see Peralta’s reaction, but hears his laugh behind her anyway.

_(3. She’d perhaps feel a bit guilty, and it’s harder to work with a guilty conscience.)_

They have to wait a few minutes after knocking, but eventually the door opens and the man they’ve been looking for opens up. “Fred Carter?” she begins, flashing her NYPD badge at him, but before she can continue the man in front of them has forcefully barged past both of them and is running down the street as though his life depends on it.

“Figures,” mutters Peralta with a sigh, as he and Amy go off after him.

Amy is used to chasing after perps. It kind of comes with the territory of being a cop a lot of the time. She tries to go for morning jogs several times a week, and runs enough on the job to stay in shape.

Fred Carter is surprisingly fast though, and keeps a steady pace ahead of them. It’s six blocks before he finally begins to slow, and another two before an out of breath Amy (a little ahead of Peralta – he should really jog more and fill himself with marshmallows less) manages to catch up with him in a small alley way near to a dumpster.

She tackles Carter to the ground just as Peralta’s rounded the corner and is running toward them, a good few metres away. Getting Carter’s hands behind his back is difficult, but she manages it, pulling him and herself to a standing position.

Except Carter is still struggling, and it only takes a second. Amy’s pretty strong, surprisingly so to a lot of people, but Carter’s a bit stronger. A second of struggling and then his arm is free, and he has a knife that Amy didn’t even spot before – did he literally get that from up his sleeve – a knife that’s now being thrust toward her—

“Hey!” It’s very fast. One moment, Amy has her back against the wall, a knife inches from her chest, the next there’s a shout and suddenly no one is in front of her. Peralta had forcefully run into the perp’s side, sending him flying sideways and into some well-placed piles of garbage bags.

Amy only takes a second to recover, quickly leaping into action to try and help her partner. Before she can grab hold of the perp’s arm though she sees the glint of the blade in his hand, next to her partner’s stomach, then she doesn’t see it at all, and hears Jake make a noise of surprise. Amy grabs Carter’s wrist and hears the knife fall to the floor, but her eyes aren’t on him.

“Peralta—” she starts.

“It’s okay, I’m okay!” Peralta says quickly, and he must be. Because with Amy’s help he’s able to shove both of Carter’s hands behind his back and put him in handcuffs before quickly and breathlessly reading him his rights.

Amy pulls the perp to his feet quickly, her eyes on Peralta, who is stepping back once Amy has firm hold of Carter, examining himself. He’s holding his left hand in his right, wincing in some pain. Carter must have fallen on his wrist during the take-down, but his eyes aren’t on his hand. “Oh my god,” he murmurs, looking down at the side of his stomach where she now sees a knife sized hole in his jacket.

There’s no blood, and Amy feels some relief. After the relief though comes disbelief. The knife had apparently sliced through his jacket and into the big packet of marshmallows in his pocket, saving his abdomen from the blade.

Amy stares at him. He looks incredibly smug all of a sudden.

_(4. He might still try to do his job with two broken legs?)_

They call for backup to help them get Carter back to the precinct, and Peralta is advised to head over to the hospital for his wrist. At first he seems like he might argue, which makes Amy want to smack him a little bit. But after being warned that it might be broken, and then accidentally hitting it on a car door (and yowling in pain), he relents and gets a lift over there. Amy promises to join him later. Just to follow up on the case, of course, not... because she’s that worried about his injury.

Before heading over there though she does make a small errand, a small bit of necessary shopping, as well as calling McGinley. When she does finally arrive at the hospital, she finds Peralta in the waiting area, filling in hospital paper work with a bandage wrapped around his wrist. He’s smiling when he spots her heading toward him, regardless.

“One sprained wrist.” He holds up his hand. It’s his left one, which means he’s not having too much trouble with the paperwork. Though his handwriting is so bad Amy’s not sure it would even matter that much.

“Yet you look surprisingly upbeat,” she says, taking a seat next to him.

“Well, duh. We caught the bad guy, didn’t we? Also – I was afraid it was broken, but it’s not, so. Good day.”

Amy nods. “Right. Could be worse...” She sighs, before adding, “I called the Captain.”

“And?”

“And he… told us to set the paperwork on his desk by tomorrow afternoon. He said he hopes you’re okay.”

“And… also seemed totally disinterested in how well the case actually went? No praise?”

“Maybe… Ugh, forget it,” she says, frustrated. “He doesn’t care. You were right.” It was a depressing fact. Even when she’d told McGinley that one of his detectives had been injured, he didn’t seem as interested as he _should_ be; wishing Peralta well was an afterthought more than anything.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Peralta puts down the paperwork on his lap, sits up straight, and has a grin so wide he looks ready to burst into song. “Let me mark the date and time – Detective Santiago, I’m right?”

Amy crosses her arms and chooses to turn away, rolling her eyes. “Just barely.”

There’s a pause, and Amy feels Peralta’s eyes on her, enough that she has to look back at him. “You know,” he says when her eyes meet his. “Whether McGinley cares or not: I thought we were both pretty badass today.”

He shouldn’t be this good at making her smile. “Hm, we were a bit,” she admits.

“A bit? I’ve never seen anyone take down a man like that– or, well...” He frowns, before admitting, “Okay, except Rosa. But the surprise when you did it made it better, honestly. Not as awesome as when I totally ran him down, of course. I’ll have to tell Terry about that. I think he’ll get super proud!”

Amy doesn’t know why or how he’s making her laugh, but he is. They both could have been seriously injured today – hell, one of them did get hurt – and McGinley was a totally disappointment. But Peralta is somehow making her feel better about the whole thing.

“And!” He reaches to the chair next to him where his ripped jacket lies, grabbing the packet of marshmallows from underneath it. “Didn’t I tell you these would be useful?” He waves them at her, grinning.

“Okay, fine, I admit it: I’m glad you brought the stupid marshmallows.” She sighs. “If anyone gets to stab you, it’ll probably be me.”

“Wow, twice admitting I’m right in one day, and also a call for murder. You don’t need to see someone here, do you?” Peralta asks, and he makes a move to try and put his hand on her forehead. She bats his hand away, but he’s already caught interest in something else. “Uh. What d’you have there?” He’s looking at the shopping bag next to her. “You… did some late night shopping before checking I’m alive?”

“I was pretty sure the sprained wrist wouldn't kill you, and – well, your jacket got ruined, and… it might be my fault a little bit, so – here.” She very quickly hands the bag over and watches him take out what’s inside. It’s a new leather jacket, pretty much identical to the last one he had, minus the new knife hole.

“Wha— Oh, noice,” he says, looking ecstatic and surprised in equal measure. “Wow. Thanks, Santiago.”

“You did save me from getting knifed.”

“So you saved my jacket,” he says as he continues to admire it, though that isn’t really what this is.

“Look— Jake…” Immediately, perhaps because that’s the first time she’s used his first name since they met two weeks ago, his head jerks up. There’s a small smile on his face, a small but genuine smile she can’t really remember seeing on him before. Amy hesitates a little before says, with sincerity, “Thank you… Really. For having my back.”

“We’re partners, Amy – we’ll pretty much always have each other’s back now. Right?”

Amy doesn’t say anything for a moment, watching the corners of his mouth curve up as he looks her in the eye. “Right,” she says softly.

_(5. Maybe Jake is actually a good cop._

_Sometimes.)_

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be way longer and more than a friendship thing, but I may have overestimated myself and in the end didn't have the time. I might actually turn it into a series though.


End file.
